BREAKING BAD

Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan.
The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008, to
September 29, 2013. It tells the story ofWalter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school
chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, who, together with his former
student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), turns to a life of crime, producing and selling
crystallizedmethamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies. The title is from
a Southern colloquialism meaning to "raise hell". Breaking Bad is set and was filmed in Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
Walter's family consists of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and children, Walter, Jr. a.k.a. Flynn (RJ
Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie
Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who connects him
with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and in turn Mike's employer,
drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final season introduces the characters of Todd
Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).
Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By the time
the series finale aired, the series was among the most-watched cable shows on American television.
The show received numerous awards, including sixteen Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite
Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards and a People's Choice Award. For his
leading performance, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a
Drama Series four times. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the highest
rated show of all time.

Conception
Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan, who spent several years writing the Fox series The XFiles. Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. "Television
is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for
years or even decades," he said. "When I realized this, the logical next step was to think, how can I
do a show in which the fundamental drive is toward change?" [6] He added that his goal with Walter
White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface.[7][8][9]

The show title is based on a Southern colloquialism meaning, among other things, "raising hell", and
was chosen by Gilligan to describe Walter's transformation.[10] According to Time entertainment editor
Lily Rothman, the term has a broader meaning and is an old phrase which "connotes more violence
than 'raising hell' does.... [T]he words possess a wide variety of nuances: to 'break bad' can mean to
'go wild,' to 'defy authority' and break the law, to be verbally 'combative, belligerent, or threatening'
or, followed by the preposition 'on,' to 'completely dominate or humiliate.'" [11]
The concept emerged as Gilligan talked with his fellow writer Thomas Schnauz regarding their
current unemployment and joked that the solution was for them to put a "meth lab in the back of an
RV and [drive] around the country cooking meth and making money."[12]
Gilligan said, before the series finale, that it was difficult to write for Walter White because the
character was so dark and morally questionable: "I'm going to miss the show when it's over, but on
some level, it'll be a relief to not have Walt in my head anymore." [13] Gilligan later said the idea for
Walter's character intrigued him so much that he "didn't really give much thought on how well it
would sell", stating that he would have given up on the premise since it was "such an odd, dark
story" that could have difficulties being pitched to studios.[12]
As the series progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of Breaking Bad made Walter increasingly
unsympathetic.[7] Gilligan said during the run of the series: "He's going from being a protagonist to an
antagonist. We want to make people question who they're pulling for, and why." [8] Cranston said by
the fourth season: "I think Walt's figured out it's better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He's well on
his way to badass."[9]
While still pitching the show to studios, Gilligan was initially discouraged when he learned of the
existing series Weeds and its similarities to the premise of Breaking Bad. While his producers
convinced him that the show was different enough to still be successful, he later stated that he would
not have gone forward with the idea had he known about Weeds earlier.[14]

Development history
The network ordered nine episodes for the first season (including the pilot), but the 200708 Writers
Guild of America strike limited the production to seven episodes.[15] The initial versions of the script
were set in Riverside, California, but at the suggestion of Sony, Albuquerque was chosen for the
production's location due to the favorable financial conditions offered by the state of New Mexico.
Once Gilligan recognized that this would mean "we'd always have to be avoiding theSandia
Mountains" in shots directed toward the East, the story setting was changed to the actual production
location.[16][17] It was shot primarily on 35 mm film,[18] withdigital cameras employed as needed for
additional angles, point of view shots and time-lapse photography.[19] Breaking Bad reportedly cost $3
million per episode to produce, higher than the average cost for a basic cable program. [20]
In July 2011, Vince Gilligan indicated that he intended to conclude Breaking Bad at the end of its fifth
season.[21] In early August 2011, negotiations began over a deal regarding the fifth and possible final

season between the network AMC and Sony Pictures Television, the production company of the
series. AMC proposed a shortened fifth season (six to eight episodes, instead of 13) to cut costs, but
the producers declined. Sony then approached other cable networks about possibly picking up the
show if a deal could not be made.[22] On August 14, 2011, AMC renewed the series for fifth and final
season consisting of 16 episodes.[23]
In terms of Breaking Bad's immense global popularity, creator Vince Gilligan thanked the on demand
video service Netflix at the Emmy Awards in September 2013. He even went as far as to say that
Netflix "kept us on the air".[24]